Meet the Woman Setting the Bar for Challenger Brands

Since joining Jet.com in 2015 as the chief customer officer, Liza Landsman has managed the critical task of overseeing marketing, branding, and analytics for the ecommerce startup. She's done so well selling Jet.com, that Walmart acquired the domain last year for a whopping $3 billion. The deal spurred Ad Week to dub Landsman "the woman who could turn Jet.com into the digital era's ultimate challenger brand." This past winter, her rise continued when Jet.com named Landsman president.

Recently, the ANA had the chance to catch up with the woman who is taking the world of ecommerce by storm to ask her about managing data, Jet.com's partnership with Walmart, her view of Silicon Valley's approach to iterating, and more. The interview can be found below.

Jet.com is a big player in the online retail space and there is now so much data available about customer behavior. Parsing that data is a herculean task, though. What information do you pay attention to, and why do you think it is important?I learned a lot about how to use data in previous roles at IBM, Citi, BlackRock, and Etrade, but obviously every business presents its own unique challenge in terms of understanding what to look for. What I really want to see is data that disproves our assumptions. I'd much rather find out we're wrong and keep pushing forward with new ideas and tests than start to believe we've got our customers down cold.

Integrating with a new company is always a difficult process. How are Jet.com and Walmart trying to set each other up to succeed?There are obviously a lot of moving parts, but the main thing is making sure our goals are aligned. Connecting systems and getting people working together across organizations takes time, but as long as we're all pulling in the same direction and have visibility into what everyone is trying to accomplish, we'll be able to do a lot in a short period of time.

How do you feel about the Silicon Valley adage, "Move fast and break things"?If it's an option, I'd rather move fast and not break things. But I do believe in the importance of experimentation and if you're not failing at some things — and learning from it — you're probably not taking enough smart risks.

You've talked about how important company culture is to a successful business. How do you think a manager or an individual contributor can have an impact on company culture?Company culture is really just the sum of the million tiny interactions that take place every day — the way people respond to each other in meetings, the conversations that happen when you stop by someone's desk. Individuals can make a huge impact on the culture not just by showing up every day and working their hardest, but by being a kind, considerate, thoughtful person.